The latest challenge to the Crown Estate has come from the Orkney Islands Council in Scotland. According to the Financial Times “A key goal of Orkney is to wrest control of the seabed around the islands from the Crown Estate . . .. Although such assets have long held relatively marginal economic importance, the development of offshore wind energy – plus tide and wave machines being tested in Orkney – make the seabed a strategic resource”.
Crown Estate property belongs to the people of Britain but is claimed by the Windsor clan. In a concession to that claim the Windsors have since 2011 been given 15 per cent of the increasing income generated by the Estate’s vast assets, which include the seabeds around Britain and Northern Ireland.
The Orkney challenge follows suggestions that the Scottish Parliament might claim from the Estate the seabed bordering Scotland.